


Conversations at the end of the world

by JanuaryBlue



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurot (Final Fantasy XIV), Amaurotine Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, Ascians (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV Second Person, Patch 5.2: Echoes of a Fallen Star Spoilers, Warrior of Light Is The 14th Convocation Member (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:27:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22999162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryBlue/pseuds/JanuaryBlue
Summary: A look at some conversations that might have taken place in Amaurot around the Final Days - before, after, and potentially during.Non-chronological and most likely non-continuous.
Relationships: Elidibus/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Conversations at the end of the world

“You mean to let me go? To let me walk free?”

Elidibus – your calm, reserved, _diplomatic_ Elidibus – does not sport his usual gentle smile. But neither are his lips in the hard line they were before, tight with his features drawn together in frustration that even he had not the energy to conceal. 

“Walk free?” He repeats to you, near monotone. “Are we goalers as well as killers, now?”

That hadn’t been –

As soon as you open your lips you realize how pointless the words would sound. How he would reply. You’d worn in terrible, tired circles of debate with him – and the others – each side far too stubborn, too desperate, too deeply invested to give in.

“There is no more point in arguing. You know already how I feel. How you feel. We both know that will not change.”

Nothing would change at all. They – the _Convocation_ had taken up the plan against your advisement. There could be no clearer sign that you were no longer one of them, your goals no longer aligned with theirs. As the only one of the Fourteen who had not resolved on this course of action, it is obvious that you are the one who does not fit in.

It is more a symbolic gesture than anything. Besides the fact that you cannot bear – cannot imagine – do not _want to touch_ – the sacrifice required. The ultimate rejection of the responsibility – the _honor_ you’d been entrusted with. The future.

They will manage it without you. They are the Convocation. Your loss would hardly slow them any more than your protests had.

“I came to see you off.”

“I know my way, Elidibus.” He nearly flinches at the title.

Elidibus hesitates. A silence that stretches. While he stands there, outside, wasting precious seconds, granting you his attention you had so often craved –

Even at such a time, you’d found it in yourself to miss this.

“Is there nothing at all I can say to sway you?” Neither can you miss the rawness of his voice – all your voices had been, after what happened in there – and the tinge of pleading which pulls at your heartstrings.

Still, what a question to ask. “If I _knew_ of the existence of an argument which would change my decision, I would have been convinced by it already.”

His lips still have it in them to twitch, just a bit.

Suddenly your throat is quite dry. “You truly mean to leave us?”

“Would I have said so, otherwise?”

That is a question to which you both know the answer.

“…I shall volunteer as sacrifice.”

Absurd. None of the Convocation would sacrifice themselves – it feels _wrong,_ and yet, as the wisest sages in the world, how could they afford to be sacrificed?

This must be what failure feels like.

“Lahabrea will not let you,” You say, instead of everything else you want to, “Emet-Selch will not let you. Igeyorhm might throttle you for the very suggestion.”

She’d been the most upset about the sacrifices. The most sympathetic to your objections. Lahabrea had argued with her for two days and two nights – time you _could not afford –_ and she had emerged from the experience, harrowed, and insisted to you that asking sacrifice of yourself was selfish…

Perhaps it was. Perhaps that is simply who you are, here, at the end of it.

And selfishness did hardly become a member of the Convocation.

“For the core. My soul shall provide the basis for His being.”

No.

_No._

Not him, anyone but him.

Were he to merely die, to be sacrificed; his soul would pass on, and be reborn. No matter how the world warped and broke down, the vast sea of aether laid tranquil, indifferent to the struggles of the physical world, even as it seemed set to dissolve into nothingness.

But as a catalyst for this summoning – this great and terrible plan which involved such amounts of aether as never have been conceived by any design, complexity past even the most esoteric proposals ever imagined –

To be at the epicenter of this. To be the foundation of such a magic, offering up his very essence to thread together the fabric of this impossible creation. There is no knowing what will happen for certain. It may not even _work,_ foremost among your objections.

Now, even if it does, Elidibus is lost to you. For all time.

He would be irrevocably warped. If he survived at all, remained coherent as a distinct entity from the being he meant to embody. The color of his soul, the weave of it and patterns of pulsing, how it warmed at your touch, his familiar aether –

You turn away with a shudder. That familiar aether tugs on you, painfully weak. Unwilling to impose. Distant, like a tap on the shoulder one might grant a stranger.

Further moments of silence pass, empty air – _wasted seconds_ – until you finally gave in and shifted yourself to face him.

“Don’t.” He won’t listen, you already know.

And still you say it. You have to say it. You have to stop him.

You have to stop them, and you cannot.

“Who else could it be? What are we to do without you?” Elidibus asks softly.

You take a step back and a movement catches your eye, the gilded claws of his gloves trembling faintly at your reaction.

“I…” Not for the first time this day, you thank your mask.

They were never meant to shield tears from sight, but yours have done well enough at it. As long as you do not blink them out, to the others, they should be imperceptible. You will need to acquire a new one once you return home.

Not that it will be home, really, without him. Not that you will be there for long.

How can you possibly tell him you _would not have wanted_ to do it? Even if you accepted – no, you could never condone this plan. It’s not good enough, not worth your work even though it is by rights the only chance. Condemning such a portion of humanity to certain death.

Anathema. Unpalatable, repulsive and contradictory to all you hold the most dear.

The truth is, you want to live. You want _him_ to live. And Hades, and Hythlodaeus, and Igeyorhm and Lahabrea and even _Nabriales –_

What you wouldn’t give to go to another of Lahabrea’s lectures again. To listen to him ramble during meetings as Nabriales audibly rolled his eyes, earning him one scolding or another that invariably wasted even more time. Hearing him make some quip or another only for Lahabrea to snap back at him with a perfectly constructed retort despite being in the middle of some tangent or another.

Emet-Selch would antagonize out of boredom. Igeyorhm would deride all of them. Elidibus would steer the conversation back to the appropriate topic, patient and long-suffering. He used to speak with Lahabrea after the meetings all the time, concerned that he had taken Emet-Selch or Nabriales’s mockery to heart. Doing the same thing for other members.

Urging them to reconcile, to treat each other more kindly. Building up bonds that went deeper than mere acquaintanceship, over centuries. When Lahabrea had skipped a day of sleep, Emet-Selch had been the first to notice. Nabriales had offered some device which could warp his perception of time enough to take his rest with relative quickness.

When Igeyorhm faltered, fretted, fettered by what you knew to be an inclination towards self-sacrifice, Lahabrea had been the first to notice.

As time went on and you expressed further and further doubts – one by one your fellow Convocation members came to you. Tried to reassure you in their own unique ways. There’s no telling if Elidibus told them something, or if they noticed so on their own.

As one they’d made their case against you. Rigorously protesting, treading over tired arguments and well-worn ground of debate. _No other options, the whole world at stake, there is no future without this solution._ In such desperate straits, coming up with an alternative was difficult. Coming up with a rebuttal was more impossible still.

They wore you down and down, tearing down ethical injunctions with brutal necessity, ripping apart worries of success with stark pragmatism, shredding your argument from the base down, eventually even calling your judgement into question. Raising concerns for your mental state.

They’re not wrong to. But it goes just as well for them as you.

They’d all loved you, once.

They all love you.

Elidibus came for you after, just like he would do with any other. You know they don’t need you, so…

The Convocation doesn’t _need_ you…

Please, just… to be back in that room, discreetly reaching for a hand underneath the table. Sharing secret smiles. Making familiar jokes to familiar masked faces, ones you’d seen so often you could tell them apart by their lips. Talking about a new creation or theory, debating the merits of some field of study or another, watching scholars well-acquainted with one another engage in lively debate and science so abstract it may as well be speculation.

To have them _with_ you, alongside you, instead of against you. To have that warm companionship, levity, _friendship –_

A fat tear rolls down your face. Leaving behind a shameful wet streak Elidibus cannot possibly miss.

He says your name. “Please. You need not–”

“I’m sorry.” Is all you give him before you stride off briskly, at a pace that invites him not to follow.

After everything, you still want him to respect you. Believe in you.

Even when you cannot.

Still, you will try. It’s never been in your nature to give up on anything. However impossible your task, this _must_ be done.

To save everyone. It’s exactly the kind of thing the others would have their own hearts set on, had they not all given up on it already. Driven by fear and desperation. Duty and concern. Danger unlike any other in recorded history. Blame is useless and meaningless in such a situation. You do what you must.

If it is selfishness, then you’ll bear this selfishness for all Thirteen of them.

For so long – for _so long,_ you had searched. While Lahabrea dragged you into session after session of theorization – in that time before you had realized the implications, the power it would require – while the others had planned around it, each dedicating their unique expertise, exerting their intellect in every way possible.

You will not stop searching now.

**Author's Note:**

> Bleh how many times am I gonna write about this stuff, I feel so… unoriginal lol. Still, I wrote this entire thing in one sitting after a few hours so... hurray for inspiration? 
> 
> Sorry guys I’m in the Angst Zone right now so… this is what you get XD


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